Part 1 of 2 articles
In its July-August publication, the North American Council for Latin America (NACLA) ran a
series of articles as part of its "Report on Peru," including a photograph of dictator Alberto
Fujimori on its cover page. It was the same kind of re-packaged anti-communist innuendo the
magazine runs every year with a more clearly reactionary position on the political events in Peru.
Thus, NACLA's subtle support of the dictator in the past, when it used to be the international
forum for agents of the Peruvian regime known as senderologists. Today, it openly praises and
flatters the "successes" claimed by the reactionary government.
The reality is that NACLA's biased reporting and pro-Fujimori propaganda cannot hide the
regime's political and economical failures. Who can deny the chronic misery, exploitation,
disease and genocide of the people at the hands of the dictatorship? NACLA's deliberate
distortion of the struggle of the working class, peasants and progressives waging a powerful
People's War for the last 16 years , serves imperialism ( mainly U.S. imperialism) and the native
Peruvian big bourgeoisie. Let's analyze NACLA's "Report on Peru":
First, as part of a vain attempt to give credibility to the farce of "Fujimori's success" and
"popularity," NACLA presents a text of Guillermo Rochabrun, a supporter of Fujimori. He
initially claims:
"While previous administrations have suffered one policy failure after another in dealing with the
country's economic and political crisis, Fujimori had potable 'success' stabilizing the country's
erratic economy and defeating the shining path guerrilla insurgency. Finally and perhaps most
puzzling, despite the high social costs of his economic model and the authoritarian style that has
characterized his government, Fujimori has received consistently high popularity ratings from
Peruvians of all social classes." p. 16.
But, Rochabrun, in a fog of words, quickly contradicts himself in the middle of his article:
"Fujimori - who had waged an electoral campaign against neoliberal reform- made an about-face
and implemented the very orthodox economic policies he had rejected... In the short term, these
measures aggravated the recession and further jacked up inflation -- gasoline prices increased 30
times overnight, while inflation for the month of August alone was 400%. In a country of 22
million inhabitants, the number of people living in poverty jumped from 9 million to 14 million.
The administration gradually introduced new measures that virtually eliminated all forms of legal
protection for salaried workers. Job security was completely stamped out, and new rules
governing contracts were established that reduced employers' obligations to their workers. For
example, workers under 24 years of age are now considered 'apprentices', which means they can
receive salaries below the minimum wage, and they are not covered by the social security system."
P.17
He admits the basis of "Fujimori's success": "Paralleling his implementation of an orthodox neoliberal agenda was Fujimori's increasing intolerance for democratic checks and balances...military control over the counterinsurgency war intensified, prompting a further deterioration in the government's human rights record." p. 17.
And he cannot deny the real nature of Fujimori's "high popularity ratings" fabricated by opinion
polls controlled by the government: "Fujimori relies on information gathered by the National
Intelligence Service (SIN) to maintain his lock on power. Consequently, SIN -and its defacto
head [the drug baron] Vladimiro Montesinos- has accrued a great deal of power and influence
within his administration. It monitors the telephone conversations of key figures, both outside and
within the government. This includes the surveillance of members of Peru's Army, Navy, Air
Force and police, in order to prevent any organized resistance against the pro-Fujimori High
Command [the split within the armed forces]. SIN also tries to mold public opinion in Fujimori's
favor. It does so through biased public-opinion polls, hiring sympathetic journalists for
Fujimori-controlled media outlets [radio, TV, journals, etc.] and by planting rumors and staging
sensationalist events to distract public attention when necessary" The latter obviously refers to the
media blackout and censorship during the major guerrilla offensives (e.g., May, July, October and
December 1993-1996). And during the outbreak of a cholera epidemic in 1991, for example, a
series of images of a weeping virgin 'appeared' throughout Lima. In a highly publicized visit,
Fujimori prayed for Peru's future before one of these images.
From the above, it is clear that Fujimori's "success" and "high popularity ratings" are gross
manipulations to cover up the exploitative, manipulative, oppressive and corrupted
landlord-capitalist dictatorship in Peru in the service of imperialism, mainly Yankee. Actual facts
confirm that Fujimori has not met one of its 3 counter-revolutionary tasks: 1) reinvigorate
bureaucratic capitalism, 2) re-structure the old State, and 3) annihilate the People's War. The
regime is neither successful nor popular but it is based on political deception and
counterrevolutionary violence in order to maintain his place in Power. As Rochabrun reluctantly
admits: "These authoritarian tendencies culminated in Fujimori's coup de main [military coup] on
April 5, 1992. He abruptly dissolved Congress and the judiciary, concentrating all the state's
powers in his hands [in the hands of the military and its Yankee advisors]...The coup confirmed
one of the most notable characteristics of Fujimori's rule: disdain for legal formalities. Fujimori
systematically alters the rules of the game whenever he deems it necessary --either by creating
new laws or by modifying old ones to suit his personal interests [imperialist interests.]"
THE PEOPLE OF PERU AGAINST FUJIMORI'S REGIME AND THE ROTTEN.
Rochabrun dares to claim "The electorate voted for Fujimori in 1995 because they have felt that
he had effectively resolved the country's two central problems: hyperinflation and guerrilla
violence"; but there is no mention of what "electorate" voted for Fujimori, and this is so because
the tyrant Fujimori has no support among Peru's people. Even the reactionary Rochabrun admits
above that Fujimori, through the reactionary Army and intelligence services, applies sinister
manipulations and criminal repressive violence to maintain his place in Power. The people of Peru
did not vote for Fujimori, on the contrary, Fujimori was repudiated by the vast majority of
Peruvians who no longer believe the scam of "western democracy" imposed by the imperialist
powers.
According to Peru's official electoral results, the 1995 election did not "legitimize" Fujimori, on
the contrary, the election completely exposed his corrupted regime. The widespread electoral
fraud conducted by SIN, the manipulation of ballots, the ridiculous campaign to portray Nisei
Fujimori as "Inca Pachacutic", and the accomplice participation of the United Nations, Yankee
imperialism, and the OAS, did not prevent the Peruvian people's rejection of Fujimori's tyranny
and his counterfeit "democratic rule. This is clearly confirmed by the election's results:
PERU: 1995 Presidential Election's Results
| Number of Voters | Percentage | |
| Total registered voters | 11,369,712 | 100 % |
| Absenteeism (did not vote) | 3,504,052 | 30.82 % |
| Blank, lost or null votes (boycott) | 4,681,639 | 41.18 % |
| Fujimori + Fraud | 2,046,522 | 18.0 % |
| Perez de Cuellar and others | 1,137,499 | 10.0 % |
(Note: Voting is mandatory in Peru. Existing laws penalize with jail and fines those who refuse to vote.)
Source: Peru's National Board of Elections (Jurado Nacional de Elecciones del Peru) as published
in Caretas magazine-Lima, April 20, 1995.
Therefore, it is clear the "electorate" rejected both the farce of "democracy" and Fujimori's
regime. Only 18% of the total number of registered voted for Fujimori, and still, with this
minority, he was elected "president". Is this democracy? Impossible, it is a scam, a fraud to
maintain the U.S. puppet in power, the Fujimori's tyranny and oppressive exploitation over the
vast majority of Peru's population. But the US government and the big bankers' world
publications (New York Times, Washington Post, The Guardian, Le Monde, El Pais, etc.) portray
such fraud as "democracy" and "the will of the people." This is all rubbish, all rotten lies to
deceive, oppress and exploit the working class masses in Peru and around the world.
The imperialist U.S. media controlled by wall street bankers world street bankers and the
opportunist liberal outlets (NACLA, Village Voice, the Nation, etc.), persist in spreading the big
lie that Fujimori was elected by "democratic majority". This is how they go about it: first they take
into account only the results recorded as "votes for Fujimori" and "votes for other candidates",
that is 2,046,522 votes are added to the 1,137,499 votes for other candidates (3,184,021 votes =
28% of total registered voters). Then, this partial sum of votes (28%) is presented in the press as
the total 100% of all registered voters (!). In this way, the 2,046,522 votes (18%) allocated to
Fujimori suddenly becomes a 64% of a "total" partial sum. Fujimori's 18% of votes is transformed
--on paper-- into a 64% , and this manipulation is advertised as his "democratic majority"(!).
Fujimori has no legitimacy; he has relied entirely on the military and the U.S. Embassy to govern
from day one. His "democratic support" exists only in NACLA and the outlets of imperialism.
The election of April 9, 1995, was an international scandal that has brought the charade of
"Western democracy" and its parliamentary system to a state of putrefaction, showing in practice
that it is all a set-up to impose new forms of fascist rule. In reality, the so-called "elections"
reflected only this: the majority of Peru's people repudiates bourgeois parliamentary democracy
and Fujimori's corrupted terrorist regime.
(End of part 1)